2w ago

What were you surprised to learn wasn't actually normal?

552 comments

for men to wish to be a woman

That not everyone secretly wanted to be a woman.
- Well, not the women, obviously, because they're already women.
  
  Lucky bastards.
- Oof yup that was a doozy
- I'm still not entirely convinced tbh. I mean women are cute and just great and men are...
  
  Men can be great too, and being a man has lots of perks (beyond even those imposed by patriarchy). Look for allies and you will find them in all gender flavours.

Homophobia
I was raised in a right wing, rural area, and i didn't meet a gay person til higschool. When he said he was gay, i assumed he was joking.
Im trans now lol
- Dude tells you he's gay, immediately turns you trans. The danger is real, people! 😭
  
  if my grandma were to be believed my dad's babysitter when he was 4 years old infected him with homosexuality then he passed it onto his children because one (me) is trans and the other is bisexual
  She's not very harmful about it but is just really damn confused lol
  
  These must be the so called trans reading bed time stories turning kids gay i keep hearing so much about. /s
- Small towns are terrible for this. And racism
  
  There's a reason cities are more liberal. Turns out being surrounded by different cultures, races, sexualities, and beliefs shows you that maybe they're not so different. In a town of 15k middle American white folks, it's hard to see another culture equally, let alone at all.
  Same thing with college. There's no such thing as a liberal or democratic college. It's just that people are simply surrounded by other people. You learn all of those weird rules and things you were taught don't actually hold up, and that everyone is kind of the same
- Grew up semi-rural south and same thing but my parents took me to see The Birdhouse for some reason (I was 14) and I was like "OH!"
  Not gay myself, but thankfully I did not grow up to be the bigoted person my parents wanted me to be.
- it was semi-common in the early 2000s in cities, but not anymore after 2010.

I remember one day realizing it was odd that my dad would hug my mom but my mom would never hug him back. She would just stand there and let him hug her. Yeah he was an abusive husband and I was very happy for her when she finally left him after over a decade!

Knee pain. Everyone told me it was normal growing pains, until one little league coach notice I run weird. Queue years of doctors and specialists and tests and scans and surgeries, and now I'm a 40 something guy with advanced arthritis that could have been much much worse if left untreated.
- way to go attentive little league coach!
  also wtf parents?
  
  "Well it's not hurting me so it can't be that bad."
  
  My parents took me to see doctors, who told them it was just growing pains and suggested I exercise more to lose weight. I saw three specialists and had a bunch of xrays before anyone noticed the shady spots on my cartilage. Osteochondritis Dissecans occurs in 15-30 people out of 100,000, and most of the primary care doctors I've had in my life had never heard of it.
  I can't blame my parents for that. I can blame them for a lot of things, but they did their best.

Getting locked in the basement without water, or thrown out into the streets for half a day, when you misbehaved as a child.
- If I may ask, where are you from?
  
  Germany
- I mean, yeah? Is that really so bad. I guess it depends what the intent was. The town I grew up in was pretty tame, and the room I'd get locked in without food or water if I'd misbehaved had books
  
  Today you are learning it's not normal to lock children away with no food or water.
  
  yes, that is a form of child abuse
  
  I was locked outside of the house for long periods of time and had to drink from the garden hose / garden faucet, and pee in the bushes. We also had like 10+ apple trees. It wasn't that bad. A bit boring sometimes.
  But that's because it was outside and I could get my needs covered and meet friends.
  Locked inside without these needs covered for extended periods is a lot worse in my opinion. Even cats and dogs have those needs covered.
  It's also about the lack of freedom when locked inside.
  I would not treat my own children like I was treated, and especially not like you were.
  
  I think how rough the punishment is really depends on how long you strand the child for
  
  The only acceptable intent would be something like saving your child from a murderer assaulting your family and there not being enough time for supplies.
  
  Average lemmy.ml user be like:
  I mean, yeah? Is that really so bad. I guess it depends what the intent was. The town I grew up in was pretty tame, and the room I'd get locked in without food or water if I'd misbehaved had books

Being unable to think of something without a prompt.
I guess most people can just remember things without sticky notes and calendars.
- What are you, an LLM?
  
  I might be. Give me a topic and I'll spew out all sorts of obscure trivia, but until you mention it, I don't know that any of it exists.
  
  I call myself mlm: mediocre language model
- Genuinely. This is sadly how my memory works. It's gotten better since I had a partner who I would talk to everyday with the inane question, "so how was your day?"
  Then suddenly I had to learn how to summarize recent aspects of my life.
  And then you're like, "shit, that happened to me today? shouldn't I be angry about that?"
- i have approximate knowledge of many things; accessing it without the right trigger may take a while though.
  i know i know something but i have accepted that my brain will often only grant me access days later in a completely unrelated situation 🤷🏼‍♂️
  
  You ADHD? I was almost 40 before I learned about inattentive type ADHD. As far as I knew, ADHD was spastic kids that couldn't sit still. Since I was more of the daydream and fall asleep type, I never would have thought I was part of that crowd.
- This is me to a large degree. Give me a cue and a whole encyclopedia is at your fingertips. Just say think of something and I'm at a loss.
- You can actually train for this!
  You can train yourself to become more attuned to your interoception. This will make it easier to identify internal prompts like anxiety or hunger. In fact, a friend of mine was studying to become a psychotherapist and last year had me serve as a guinea pig for interoception interventions. In summary, if you find mindfulness practices that involve your body and your own thoughts, you'll be more attuned to your interoception. Things like active meditations can help a lot. You can check out evidence-based and peer-reviewed programs like Healthy Minds.
  You can train yourself not just to notice your interoception, but also to use interoception to build habits. I suspect this is what the people who do not use external prompts (like stickies) do: they have habits that kick in with not-so-evident prompts. They could be using something called an 'action prompt' or an 'internal prompt'. I'm using the language of Tiny Habits because it's helpful in this context.
  Tiny Habits can teach you how to create habits of all kinds, whether you use external, action, or internal prompts. Tiny Habits prefers prompts that are actions (e.g. "After I put the toothbrush down then I will pick up the dental floss"). But internal prompts are perfectly viable (e.g. "When I feel the heat on my skin and the tension in my jaw, I will describe my inner emotions to myself as if I was listening to a good friend").
  You can understand cues and habits more in depth with contextual behavior analysis. CBA or a qualified professional can help us notice when we struggle to pay attention because of conditions like ADHD or anxiety. Something else that CBA can reveal is that, sometimes, we struggle to pay attention because we haven't developed the mental information highways that can make our thoughts flow freely. Things like relational frame training can help us build those highways faster. Another option is to learn to think visibly (Harvard's Project Zero) about our everyday life, so that we build dense information highways that we can later use in daily life.
  Of course, the fact is that plenty of humans use external prompts deliberately to help them coordinate and remember things. There's a reason Scrum boards and Kanban are so popular. There's a reason calendar apps and Getting Things Done are so popular. There's a reason many societies have daily, weekly, or yearly rituals. You're among friends :)
- We are normal, it's the others who are weird
- Singing to me the song of my people. Where you all at?!
- Omg, this is me. I thought I was alone. I love all you people in this thread, FAM!
  
  Same

I don't know if this counts, but when I was little I'd go to friends houses, then later in high school to my first serious girlfriends house, and I remember their families were like... loving? I loved spending time at my girlfriends house especially, hanging out with her Mom and her Dad even if my gf wasn't there. They were so nice, and you could tell had genuine affection for their children (and to some degree, me). I miss you Mr. and Mrs. Miller!
- That's me. I had no idea other families were affectionate and said crazy stuff like, "I love you." My god, they even hug.
  To this day I struggle with affection, even though I love it. If you touch me unexpectedly I'll involuntarily flinch. I don't mind, at all, but I still jerk and can't help it.
  
  I think my family was the same but I turned out cuddly, maybe the difference was the cats?
- Heh that was my experience too. But I grew up with a single parent who spent all his time working, so most people's childhoods weren't spent climbing 5 floors of scaffolding for fun
  Met my partner and was astounded by her loving family

Excruciating period pain that would leave me fainting and vomiting every. Single. Time.
"Every girl goes through this" said the doctor, convincing my parents that I was just "dramatic".
Turns out I had huge polyps growing out of control! Left scarring in my uterus and high-risk when pregnant.
Dealt with that hell every fucking month since I was 11 until I got onto birth control in my 20s.
- Poor you! It must have been terribly frustrating that the doctor wouldn't take you seriously. Seems to be a frequent thing women go through in the medical world. Hope you're okay now.
  
  Thank you.
  Birth control was my savior and actively allowed me enjoy life again. 💕
- My wife went through something similar. Took until she was in her 30s and we were pursuing IVF for someone to take her seriously and actually do the investigation to realize she had crazy scarring from endometriosis causing all kinds of issues.
  It's insane to me how much the modern medical community seems to normalize or straight up ignore this shit, like you said.
  I realize we could have pushed harder, but when multiple doctors tell you "yeah, some women just experience periods differently, here's 500mg Naproxen to help you through" you tend to believe it.
  
  I'm so sorry. I hope that the two of you are doing well.
  It's an actual tragedy how women's health is dealt with. They get brushed off because "women have been giving birth for hundreds of thousands of years!", ignoring that it's the number one thing that kills women!! So our reproductive health and concerns are ignored while the ability to reproduce is put onto a pedestal.
  I fucking hate it.
  
  My pop history theory is that it's a latent cultural memory of the Biblical tradition. Remember how Eve was cursed with the pain of childbirth after giving Adam the fruit? Western culture has a history of seeing women's pain as a result of this ancient curse. Now, I imagine few doctors today are explicitly thinking about the Garden of Eden when diagnosing patients, but the cultural memory remains, if greatly diluted and distorted.
  
  alot of doctors are jaded asf, even to the point of laughing you out of thier office. i think women are often ignored for symptoms of pain.
- Sucks when doctors just assume things, it can cost lives.
  
  It's barbaric. They assume that if you're girl/woman, most problems are basically "female hysteria"!
  Not even "it could be [blank], you might want to keep an eye on that and report back if it doesn't go away." Nope! Diagnosis: dramatic.
  And women die from this shit. Or become disabled / handicapped. Or it affects their long-term future if they want children. It's awful.
- Hey, I know this is random, but was the pain, like, in the lower abdomen and like... Not really a muscle cramp, but deeper?And did physical activty make it better or worse? Asking for a friend. 👀
  
  Pain was deep, ye. Can't answer the question about physical activity because it rendered me unable to do any! But, yes, exerting any kind of physical effort seemed to make it worse.
  I would lie on the cold bathroom floor every month with a heating pad / hot water bottle on my stomach, but it gave little relief through the simultaneous hot flashes and cold sweats.
  Two things that actually helped somewhat if I could catch it hours before it started were: eating bananas (I suspect potassium helped with cramping), and, weirdly.. drinking pickle juice. Idk what that was about, but it worked.
  But have "your friend" get checked for endometriosis and PCOS!!! That shit can actually escape your uterus and scar up / destroy your other organs!!! No joke!!!!

Social democracy
In general the political system you grow up in seems to becomes a normalcy in your mind when in reality there's so many different ways of governing
- Most fish probably never even realize that water exists till they are yanked out of it by the fisher's net
  
  Good analogy haha

Not everyone has tics they must surpress while in public.
- Why is there no helpful suggestion under this comment? I have multiple tics too and I want someone to tell me "just sprinkle some cinnamon on your ass and they will go away!"
  
  Have you tried sprinkling cinnamon on your ass?
- It hurt to learn this

Apparently, it isn't normal to just space out during a test. Yeah, I went through K-12, undergrad, and grad school with an undiagnosed learning disability. This was only one of the symptoms...
- wait, it isn't normal?
  
  I’ve never been diagnosed with a learning disability and I would often space out sometimes during a test. The brain gets tired and needs a break/reset before going back to the task. Now, if it was constant or for long periods of time, maybe that’s different? I’m not a doctor and this person didn’t specify.

This was a really recent realization for me. I am one of the people who can voluntarily activate the tensor tympani muscles in my ears to create a low level rumbling sound. I recently tried explaining this to someone else and they still think I am making it up.
- Oh...? That has a name? Thanks!
- Let's get ready to rumble!
  This superpower is so usless. I love it.
- You are not alone! I have always been able to do that too. It still doesn't help with the tinnitus I've had since I was 4 or 5 though.
  What was a revelation to me was the idea that everyone was only sleeping 3 or 4 hours a night. I thought I was perfectly normal in not sleeping for normal time spans. And despite the drugs and cpap machine I'm prescribed, I still can only sleep 5 or 6 hours now and often less. But I often am able to get to REM sleep now.
- Is this not normal?! I can also wiggle my ears, I know that's weird though.
- Wait, that’s not normal?

I grew up thinking it was normal for grown men to be attracted to little girls. My mother had a habit of pointing out random men who just happened to be around and telling me they were staring at me/thinking about how beautiful I was/in love with my/trying to look up my skirt. The way she talked about it made it seem like it was a common, acceptable thing.
- What, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the fuck
  
  I think she had undiagnosed mental issues, tbh.
- I hope things are better for you now x
  
  Yeah, I realized as an adult that most grown men actually aren't interested in kids.
- As a man, I was worried about that growing up, but the women I'm attracted to has aged with me. I'm friends with some women under 30 from the dog park, and I can appreciate they're pretty but they also look like kids. I hope they meet nice guys around their age.
- So it wasn’t just my mom.
  
  I really wonder where they got this from! Strangely enough, when I was a teen and actually starting to get inappropriate attention from men, she would never believe that it happened.
- My mother
  …WAT…
- holy crap I hope you got out of that situation quick, this should NOT be normalized
  My heart breaks for you in this
- It was not your fault. <3
  
  Thanks.
- What in the fuck 🤮

Reading.
Or rather, how so many people seem fear and avoid it, or can't do it. Something like 21% of adults in the US are illiterate, and the majority -- 54% -- read at or below a 6th grade level.
I've been a sight reader probably since I was about six years old. I absolutely cannot look at any words legibly written in my native language and not understand them. You couldn't force me to look at words written in English and not digest them if you held a gun to my head. I fear no wall of text, no matter how tall it is.
It takes some effort to wrap your head around the notion that not only can most people not do this, but statistically speaking most or at least a plurality of people have to struggle or exert conscious effort to read and many of them are loathe to do so. And roughly one in five people simply can't. This did not sink in for me when I was younger.
I can't imagine having to live my life that way. You nerds have seen how much bullshit I write in a day; I'd go absolutely bats.

Reading.
When I got to high school I started taking book out from the library there. Over three years I took out about a dozen books that had never been read; they'd just been sitting on the shelves for years.
- When I was a kid I noticed most books hadn't been checked out by more than 2 or 3 people. At one branch they'd just stamp the back inner cover of the paperback, no checkout slip and I asked "What happens when you run out of space to stamp?" and she just laughed sadly
  
  Two things.
  "How Can I Help You" by Laura Sims. Serial killer disguised as a small town librarian. Anyone how likes libraries will recognize and enjoy.
  https://bookshop.org/p/books/how-can-i-help-you-laura-sims/19108763?ean=9780593543719&next=t
  The other thing is that when you're a reader you get a skewed view of the world. You hang out with other readers and talk about books, and grow up thinking that everyone knows who Sylvia Plath was.

Mine are all pretty mild.
Everyone reading all the time at home. Pretty much every room had bookcases, full to bursting with books. When I was old enough to have friends around they all said how weird it was to have so many books.
My parents were really emotionally distant. I don't recall either of them telling them they loved me - or each other for that matter. No hugs or kisses. More than one of my girlfriends called me an emotional cripple.
Home-cooked food every night. We never ate out, never had takeaway. My mum was a great cook though so although my friends seemed to think it was weird I'd never had a MacDonalds when I finally did try it I didn't understand the hype.
Oh, and the poop knife, of course.
- Bro is living my life
  
  Poop knife life?
- It never even occurred to me that people might not enjoy reading till I was like 14
  
  Houses without books look so weird.

Long, skinny stools. Turns out it was because of a precancerous blockage.
- They're called bar stools smh
  /jk
- I...uh, should probably schedule a doctor's visit.
  
  or drink water and consume fiber
- Hope you're doing ok now!

Growing up using a poop knife.
- Ah, a person of class!
- Did you actually? Or are you carrying that over from reddit? 'Cause I actually have a similar one to that 😅
  
  Never did I think someone would call my bluff.
  
  Do tell
- Dammit I thought for sure this wouldn't be in the comments
  
  Wait til you hear about my broken arms growing up
- Stop. Get some help.

gun assault survival training for kids
yeah, no, this is just locally normal
- On this same note, as an European it was insane for me to learn that school shootings like Sandy Hook, those are just the ones that go famous for some reason.
  But in reality hundreds more happen throughout the year that don't go "viral" so they don't get reported at all.
  Truly mind-boggling.
  
  Not true. If a single child is shot, or even shot at, it's national headline news. Caveat: That doesn't apply to inner-city children shooting each other. We, uh, don't talk about that.
  If you look at some stats a "school shooting" is any time a gun goes off on school property. I could go down to the elementary school and pop one off at midnight. School shooting.
  "Mass shootings" go this way as well. We all have an event in mind when that term comes up. There's quite a gap when you look at lies, damned lies and statistics. :) You might note that Mother Jones and The Violence Project are anything by conservative sources.
  
  We had to do active shooter training when I started my job at an US companyin Europe. That was weird.
- That wasn't even a thing when I was in school, but I imagine columbine and after changed that.
  
  I went to high school shortly after Columbine. We didn't have active shooter drills.
  
  i am also not sure how this started, but i recently saw some armored school backpacks which made me realize how strong someone's love for the uneducated is.
- Honestly I'd kind of liked more gun assault survival training as a kid

Sharing socks. My family used to have a sock basket next to our shoes. You didn't own your own socks, you just grab a pair when you need them.
I mentioned "the sock basket" offhand to a friend in elementary school and she thought it was crazy. That's when I learned that not every family has a community sock basket. Looking it up though, I find a couple reddit threads from people with the same experience (and people replying that it's weird) 🤷‍♀️
- Don't you have different sized feet?
  
  This was the first thing I thought of. I wonder what percentage of households consist of members who all have the same foot size? That's got to be abnormal. What, do the 5 year olds suddenly sprout size-12 feet? They don't wear socks before then?
  This story sounds utterly suspicious.
- Well, in my mid-40s, this is a new one. As long as they're clean and fit, why not?
  
  Are socks ever clean enough? Would you do this with underwear, and why not?
- My daughters share school socks, because they are all the same colour and shape. So I guess this concept isn't too unreasonable to do it on a whole family level.
  
  Your daughters are all the same colour and shape?
- We used to do it as well at least for me and my brothers. We all got the same white tube socks so they went in the same basket by our laundry
- We had a sock basket when I was a kid!
- wait that's not normal?
- This is unintentionally how we do it. We split up the socks after cleaning them but like a day later mom is wearing the oldest ones socks and the oldest one is wearing dads socks, and the little one has one sock from the older brother and another he found under the couch buried in dog hair.
  Same same.
- I think that depends on common shoe sizes. With the biggest feet there is no way I could put on anyone else's socks.
- Not even sure how that would work with the different sizes we had in my family

Not being able to see anything when closing my eyes and not constantly hearing a voice in my head. I have aphantasia and thought people were always seeking metaphorically about seeing things in their head.
I only more recently learnt that people actually hear things as well as in like an internal monologue. To me, the whole thing sounds exhausting.
- Very exhausting, especially when your stupid brain makes you roleplay possible future conversations with people in your head all day. Difficult to focus and so exhausting
  
  Oh, I have that as well, it's just more like ... data, I guess? I think sometimes what I wrote makes people think I have no imagination or creativity; I definitely do but it's just different.
  
  Oh, we can do that, just without the voice.
  
  I still have the voice (and the music…) just no pictures, except when I'm really tired and it's dark. It's funny because a friend of mine has the exact opposite (pictures but no voice).
- And then there’s people like me, who can make an audio-visual tour in their minds, see things in color, moving pictures, hear sound, feel touch.
  Took me a long time to actually focus on mundane tasks and not doing them on autopilot.
- It is indeed exhausting! Warm regards, Joe(s)
- Think I have this. Only time I can really picture anything. At least above a part of a vague shape or higher resolution, is when I've recently woken up. Even then it's a hit or miss. Wonder if it's a wall to creativity.
  
  Fwiw I suck at visual art but was a musician who at least made some money at it (all original music), and ran d&d campaigns and such.
- I was 41 when I realised...
- There's a whole episode on that topic here
  https://pca.st/episode/ff2685cb-5ee7-4299-9fe6-fa430d9fe591
- it's weird if you're an aphant, because you adapt by just speaking outloud, and internally understanding things, the only real situation where it becomes problematic is when someone tries explaining it to you, because you're on the other side of a cliff, basically.
- What happens when you think? There's not a voice? How about when you read?
  
  In both cases, the words just... go straight from words to comprehension? It's kind of hard to answer that question, because introspection of the process isn't possible. I mean, I just look at words and know what they mean. From experience, I think I read about 3 times faster than most other people, what with not having to wait to hear them spoken by an internal voice. (Subtitles in the same language as the audio are maddening, because I can't not read them, and then have to wait so long for the speech to catch up.)
  
  My inner monologue, is just a stream of words, it isn't encumbered by a voice.
  
  reading you can sort of mentally supplant. It's really weird, but i'm very immersed into reading, like i comprehend the world building, and the writing, and the characters, and all the interactions, i can feel the environment. I can't see anything, or hear anything, but i know what it looks like (at least i think) and i know what it sounds like.
  Think about it as if it's a dream, and it starts to make more sense, it's just like a conscious dream, spurred by really good story telling.
- No monologue for me but I do have aphantasia
  I'm still pretty fucking angry everyone else gets a super power

Well, the feeling of one side of your hip being out of place. Then twisting slightly to snap it back.
It's hip displasia.
- Is this a thing for knees? Every once in a while, my knees just pop out of their sockets. It's incredibly painful, and I have to move them back by hand. I went to a doctor when I was like 18 though, and they took an x-ray, and couldn't find anything
  
  Look into Ehlers - Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. Sufferers describe similar symptoms.
  
  I suppose so, but I'm not a doctor
  https://radiopaedia.org/articles/trochlear-dysplasia
  For the hip there's also not a (as an adult) treatment, rather taking care to keep it in place and strengthen your muscles.
- Displasia literally means “out of place”? Nifty.
  
  Dis-place-yeah?

Child abuse. I thought it was normal to threaten children with violence for noncompliance. I thought it was normal to be afraid to misbehave or be suboptimal in school at the threat of violence.

Growing up in a house with hoarder parents:
Having absurd amounts of pretty much anything standing around in the house.
Parents going through your trash and blaming you for throwing away certain things that were 'still good to use' (they weren't).
- We had 3 breadmakers. 2 were in new in box for multiple years
  Why hadn't they chosen like cabbage patch kids or game consoles
  NOOOO they had to hoard kitchen counter appliances.
  My dad is 80+, has a pristine vitamax blender in box but still uses a crappy one he got at a thrift store because he wants to get as much out of his investment as possible
- i have them, they will literally fight you physically, kick and scream if you try to throw anything out. its a problem if they start to get mouse/rat infestation, even then they dont think about it. or getting canes, or old pet food, picking up someones used sports bottle off the street
- absurd amounts of pretty much anything
  Were you all able to find stuff? I knew hoarders who had about a dozen pairs of scissors because they had to buy new ones so often, forgetting where the old ones were.
  
  a hoarder have more than just a large number of one things. they include things like trash they dont throw away, empty boxes, and bags ,,,etc which pile up somewhere. random stuff they think is useful from a street corner.

Nobody "dresscoded" me at home. As soon as I was old enough to pick my own clothing, I could. What skirts or jeans or dresses I wore was my choice completely. My school also didn't care much.
Blew my mind when I realized how many other girls had to sneak out with their clothes because the parents had a rule against tight jeans or whatever.
I still think my parents were right with this one. The kids with the strictest rules were always those with the craziest outfits. Can't blame them, I'd have done the same.

When I was much younger: that normal people could see much further than me.
One of my oldest memories is going into a McDonald's for the first time with glasses; I stopped and read the entire menu, because I couldn't believe normal people could read it as soon as you walked in. I always had to get up to the counter to make it out.
I got a lot better in school after that!

Taking multiple shits every day, after a friend pointed it out that wasn't normal I did a lactose test and found out I've been lactose intolerant all my life.
- Kind of similar with me. It turned out IBS-like symptoms were one aspect of an Ankylosing Spondylitus diagnosis I got (posted about the disease in more detail yesterday). I had assumed I had a "fast metabolism" or something because I needed the bathroom almost immediately after eating a meal.
  
  that usually sounds like diarrhea, or very loose stool which is not normal. if your poop is not a nice solid sausage or a color. dint you notice any pain in your sacral region, i heard thats the most common before other joint pain comes in, plus the fusion.
- Just for anyone else, it can be normal to have multiple shits per day. I'm glad you figured out you were lactose intolerant though.
- Thats so hot
- Funny enough, when I had my same realization, stopping dairy plugged me up so now I eat cheese medicinally.
- intolerant all my life
  Guess I’m pretty lucky my parents taught me better than that 💩
- 👀

Having near constant racing thoughts and always feeling like you have to work on something and if you don't it makes you anxious. I thought my boyfriend was the alien for being able to not think about anything at all and just chill and do nothing.
- Ah good ole ADHD. I have a love hate relationship with mine. We're on speaking terms.
  I like to describe it as being simultaneously bored and overstimulated (~~tbf that's also how I describe ADHD sex~~)
  
  Irony is, that I'm not diagnosed so officially I'm just someone with racing thoughts and a restless soul.
- it's weird for me, i have ADHD traits, and also explicitly non ADHD traits, i think it's probably comorbidity with something else rather than explicitly ADHD. But that's neurology for you, sometimes it's clear, sometimes it's not, sometimes it makes no fucking sense.
  I can stare at a wall just fine, but depending on what i'm doing, i need a certain minimum amount of stimulation, and just doing things feels so good.
- I sometimes randomly end up thinking about nothing but usually I'm in the racing thoughts area. So you're saying that is something not everybody needs to deal with? Is that how they fall asleep?

Looking at light or sky when I need to sneeze helps me sneeze quicker.
It's apparently something to do with Photic sneeze reflex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex
- Yep, same same, nothing more annoying than sneezus interruptus.
- I pretty much always sneeze when first stepping into sunlight
  My wife doesn’t but I thought it was pretty funny when I realised my kid does too
- It's not super uncommon
  My hypothesis: evolution keeping our ancestors from staring at the sun till blindness
- theres one called solar reflext sneezing, i sneeze when theres a bright or intense sun. its much more likely if you allergies too.
- Who would ever want to sneeze faster? 😄
  My wife does this too, both of us have the reflex, I just happen to not enjoy sneezing?
- Sounds like made up star trek science 😁

Being able to see during ocular saccades. I was surprised to hear in so many videos “your brain blinds you because it would be nauseating”
No it’s not ? It’s just blurry.
Also, apparently some people can’t consciously control the focus distance of their eyes.
- Also, apparently some people can’t consciously control the focus distance of their eyes.
  This was a surprise for me as well as a child. I thought my eyes would change in how they look when I made them blurry, but yeah, you can't see that.
  
  Yeah all I can do is make my vision blurry, but I can't consciously adjust the distance at which I place my focus, it's just where I look. I was surprised by the fact that my eyes looked the same too.
- That's interesting, for most people the brain just substitutes in the image of where your eye moves to, so it feels instantaneous. (there's no noticeable blindness) But you can see throughout the full movement?
  In a similar vein, I never understood having a "dominant eye". I honestly don't really understand the concept, I guess most people's brains will cancel out information from one eye?
  
  Hold out your arm at arm's length
  Make a circle with your thumb and index finger
  Look through the circle at an object on the other side of the room
  Now slowly bring the circle back to your eye, such that your fingers never obscure the object, and it's always centered in the circle
  Which eye did your circle arrive at?
  !That's your dominant eye!<
  Edit: formatting, I'm a Markdown dumbass
  
  My eyes still focus automatically (though a bit slow sometimes). But if I want to, I can get my eyes out of focus pretty easily.
- Also, apparently some people can’t consciously control the focus distance of their eyes.
  It's a sailboat!
  
  A schooner is a sailboat, stupid head.
- Also, apparently some people can’t consciously control the focus distance of their eyes.
  TIL that some people can't do that. huh
  
  Like wiggling your ears, I believe it can be learned
- I'm kind of weird I think in that I can focus further away than something I'm looking at, but I can't focus closer than something I'm looking at. At the same time though I can cross my eyes to converge closer, but can't push them apart to converge further away.
- Had to look up what it was. I haven't heard of it before but yeah it's just blurry.
- You might think that but the brain is great at 'in-betweening', do the stopwatch Libet test and see what you get

Some people don't own their home. They rent it. Took me a while until I realised that we were the abnormal ones for owning homes.
- If you want to finally be normal, just give your home to me.
- I wouldn't say "abnormal", I would say the "lucky few"
  
  This is definitely the norm in many, many countries. This is the first generation, at least in a long while, where buying a home is looking completely impossible for many...
- Honestly, until you pay off your house then you’re just fucking renting it from the bank as your landlord. We’re all renting, we just like to present it as if we’re not. Yes, equity can be built which is different but at its core it’s still the same.
  
  The bank doesn't own the house, they just have a significant lien against it. Maybe a potato potato situation (how are you supposed to spell that phrase 🤔), but it is an important distinction.
  Landlords can get pissed if you paint the walls/change appliances/remodel/etc., but so long as the property is properly insured (and you make your loan payments on time) the bank probably isn't going to bother you.
  Landlords can --- and do --- place restrictions on quiet hours, guest policy, who is allowed to live there, etc. Owning is definitely different.
  
  And then there's taxes that have to be paid, and if not you can lose the house you own.
- Only abnormal in this oligarchy
  Back in the 80s, HS dropouts who worked part time at the local gas station could afford a 3br mortgage with a smile and a grin

Oh plenty of things:
having respect for others
being honest
helping the needy
fair pay for fair work
honestly considering others' perspectives
loyalty
Basically every virtue I was ever told was worthy to embody has been used against me as a weapon or a tool
And of the hundreds of people I know IRL less than 10% give any of these internal value or even attempted to put into practice
And here I've been a sucker all my life doing the proper social contract thing because I don't like the way the world is shaping up and getting CONSTANTLY bent over for it

"Maladaptive Daydreaming"
I have an issue with being remembered in person (at least that's what my therapist said). I will go to different chains of the same store on rotation, or stop going to a store all together if they remember me "too much." I'll wait until shift changes or that it's been long enough that they've forgotten about me. I've stopped going to certain places all together if there's no alternatives. Outside of lemmy, I have no social media. I don't want anyone to ever be able to look me up. Apparently people don't do that.
Using different cutlery based off of meal size/how long you want to savor something (ex: You like ice cream, so you may eat it with a smaller spoon so it lasts longer.).
Wondering what people were thinking/picturing when they bought their clothes (not in a "wow, that's ugly, what were they thinking" but what they saw themselves as. Did they see this suit and think of themselves as a ceo? Did she buy thay dress and imagine the places she'll wear it? That sort of thing).
Having multiple paths to one place. I could get to my classes or office multiple ways. I would rotate, take these stairs one day, this elevator the next, etc.
I believed everyone had some kind of food that would give them the boo-boos. I'm actually just lactose intolerant.

Grab the one of the middle knuckles of one of your fingers firmly with your other hand. Now slide the skin to your fingertip, then down to the base knuckle.
What's that? You can't do that, because the skin is fixed in place? Well, imagine my surprise when I learned penises aren't supposed to be like that.
- I still aim to have mine returned, if it's the last thing I do. Really makes you wonder who's profiting off all those ill-gotten foreskins.
  
  If we're lucky they were used to harvest stem cells, I guess (though now we can turn skin cells into stem cells IIRC)
  
  I guess the doctors get paid
- I was not sure if I was cut or not for a long time. They left me enough skin that it still slides like you describe.
  
  its called phismosis, i believe. it can constrict your penis to the point to "strangle it" an untreated one can accumulated "smegma" and it theorized it poses a higher risk of penile malignancy, which is rare. theres a similar called paraphismosis, which can caused by inflammation.
  
  There's a whole range of procedures that fall under the umbrella term of circumcision, depending on how much they cut off. It goes from snipping off a little ring at the tip (the traditional bris), to outright removal of the entire mobile skin system. I figure I've lost at least 15 square inches (an index card size) of adult tissue.

It's not normal for a boy to think "of course I would rather be a girl who wouldn't want to be a girl?"
- But it IS normal for a girl to think "of course I'd rather be a boy", right?
  Right??
  
  Who's gonna tell him?
  
  Well given how much harder it is to be a girl than a boy in our world,I bet it is more common.
  
  I think that's a normal thing to think if you are a guy that physics glitched on.
- I think it's a normal thing to think if you are really a girl that physics glitched on.

My family was super meat-centric for all holidays except Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Any meal where it's physically possible to barbecue, we would. And a family barbecue meant hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, pork steaks, and beef steaks -- one of each per person, plus a couple of extras. Sides were German-style slaw and potato salad. Buns were not included, but my grandma would always put a stack of white bread on the table (she was the only person who ever ate it).
When I started dating my husband and took him to a family holiday, he was shocked by the fact that my whole family was eating hamburgers and hot dogs with flatware instead of on buns. And he was actually sad at the lack of side dishes.
When I went to one of his family barbecues, I was sad that there was just one hamburger per person (already on a soggy bun) and a ton of weird casseroles.

That people poo every day or every other day, not once a week.
- 3/week to 3/day is considered normal in many docs I read. As my body started to hate gluten, I was up to like 6/day. Now back down to 2-3 (but sorely missing bread, pizza, etc.)
  
  Lactose for me. No more cheese or ice cream or it's also back to 6/day. Luckily there is medicine for the occasional treat.
  
  I was taught the 3/3 rule in pathology class fwiw.
  
  did you ever get tested for celiacs, and or insensitivity? thats usualy the most common thing.
- 👀
  Looks like we have representation from both ends of the spectrum here 😅
- Poopin every morning with your morning coffee (as seen on tv) is a weakness. Be proud!

At Easter, my family had a tradition where Easter Bunny left notes telling us where the next set of eggs were and we'd follow a trail of clues around the house. I thought everyone did it that way
- Maybe your family started early with explaining data structures, and this was their introduction to linked lists. Did you also have some family holiday featuring a red/green tree?
  
  Yes, where everyone gives duct tape and the traditional holiday greeting is "keep your stick on the ice."
- I don't celebrate Easter. What do people do if not that?
  
  My understanding is they usually just hide eggs around the house or yard and search, what was unusual was Easter Bunny giving us notes telling us where to look
- That was how it worked when I was a kid 🤷‍♂️
  Gotta find all of the eggs to get the last clue where the candy is.

Struggling not to act on my impulses all the time, doing foolish things before thinking and not being able to go more than a brief period without embarrassing myself. I thought everyone dealt with impulse control issues. Oh hey Adhd, nice to see you.

Intense aversion to unpreferred tasks
- You can't say that!!!

Also: aphantasia
You have no idea how pissed I was to find out all of you had a fucking superpower, would have been nice to learn this before I wasted 3 years at graphic design

Standing to wipe your ass

Physical abuse as a child.

Having a constant noise in your head/ears. It was so normal to me I didnt question it for many years. I randomly asked my friends about it one day and found out most people actually dont have an old crt tv like noise in their ears (and that its the disorder tinnitus).
In my case its not very severe thankfully, I dont notice it unless Im in a silent room or Im actively thinking about it.

Having basic empathy for other living beings, actually make it through hard work alone. Having enough time for a hobby.

spelling goto as one word.
- Well, you should write readable code…
  
  ya buddy?! Well you can just goto EOL
  EDIT: I should probably premise this that EOL in this funny context is End-Of-Line, which is an old programming term. I'm not referring to End of Life.
- GOTO 10
  
  It's quite BASIC, really...
  
  Lmao this was the first thought that came into my mind after reading the post 😅
- The single-word version should be your go-to spelling.
  
  Tell that to nasm
- I will never live down the shame of using 'wend' in a conversation

Synesthesia. I was about 20 before I learned it has a name and not everyone has strong colour associations for numbers and letters, or sees a visible map of time in their head, or has music take shape. It never occurred to me to question it because it's always been my norm.

Being able to picture something in my mind, and having that picture be as realistic as real life! I actually found out this wasn't normal here on Lemmy, so not all that long ago! 😅
- I'm the other way. I always thought "picture an apple" was a metaphor.
- Pretty sure aphantasia is the less common one, since language is full of metaphors.
- Same. I just posted but opened this thread before you had posted thism I guess I should refresh before posting, heh.
- I for real hate you

My brother-in-law grew up thinking everyone had three sets of grandparents. His mother's parents were divorced and each remarried
- To be fair it is pretty common nowadays

Limited joint range. I just thought that's as far as they went. It still freaks me out slightly when I see people using a normal range, as if they'd just turned their heads through 360° or bent their knees the wrong way.

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